Where Did You Go
by RagChinaDoll
Summary: A very long one shot. Set when Benji was still in the lab. After Benji is attacked at IMF headquarters he mysteriously vanishes and secrets are exposed. (Terrible summary)


**Summary: A very long one shot. Set when Benji was still in the lab. After Benji disappears after being attacked at IMF headquarters secrets begin to be exposed. On the anniversary of his disappearance some things begin to become clear. **

**Disclaimer: I do not own anything recognisable nor do I make any profit from this. **

**While walking one day I heard a song in a different light then I usually do. It could have been from the mental torment I was putting myself though or possible the personal loss I was recovering from, but a story began to formulate in my mind. The song I speak of is 10 Years Today by Bullet for My Valentine. There is no need to listen to said song to understand the story; I just wanted you to hear of my inspiration. **

**I also experiment with a different form of writing. I've no clue as to the title of this type of storytelling but I'll try to explain. I wanted to tell two sides of one whole story together at once. Just like the music and lyrics in the song I mentioned above work together to formulate a mental image I wanted my two sides to do the same. The words in italics are the beat and the normal text is (metaphorical) lyrics. I hope that makes sense.**

**Where Did You Go**

On July 24th 2010 he received three phone calls. Each of them had been from the same person and within an hour of each other. By the end of each call he had been left more puzzled and with more questions than there had been before.

_Blood seeped from his wounds and onto the floor beneath him, blending in with the blinding pattern. It fled from his body and between his fingers faster than a child fleeing from the school gates. He could feel the carpets fibres rub against his bare arms with each fragile intake of breath. _

If he had known the importance of the ten thirty call he would have answered. He reasoned with himself that what he was doing at the time was more important that the call would have been. He was going over the plans for an up-coming mission which involved two agents going undercover. He had to be careful to make sure every possible outcome was covered and their activities wouldn't be harmed.

The second time the phone rang he answered it. He wasn't given a moment to speak when the caller began to talk. "Ethan, this is bigger than I thought. It goes higher than I thought. Something's going to happen and it'll happen soon and I'v…" he stopped. The last thing he heard before the call ended was the recognisable sound of a gun echoing in the distance and then nothing.

_He couldn't think. His mind was racing with facts and figures yet he couldn't hold on to a single one of them. He knew that one of them would be the key to getting him out of his current situation but he couldn't grasp it. _

He was beginning to redial when the phone began vibrating in his hand. "Hunt!" he answered sharply to silence. He pulled the phone away from his ear to look at the caller ID. It read in block capitals 'BENJI DUNN'. "Benji, what's going on, are you alright?"

At first he thought there was no sound emitting from the small speakers. But then he heard the faint whimpering and he stilled.

"Benji, can you hear me?"

_Pain. Missed placed and uncertain like concussed spiders running over your body, crawling into your mouth and down towards your heart replacing your life source. _

When he received a reply it wasn't from the lips of the fast talking technician but from a pair that didn't seem at all familiar. "Ethan Hunt," it was a grating dead voice with a smoky accent. It was the type of voice you would expect to hear devastating news; instead the taunting words that slipped from its lips felt out of place in the air. "Ethan Hunt, well the circles we spin in. I'm afraid that Mister Dunn can't come to the phone right now. He's a bloody mess at present. You let this kind of thing happen far too often, don't you Hunt. You never were good at keeping people safe. Can't even protect the lackeys, especially not ones who don't understand their place."

He berated himself for not knowing the voice. As the days and months ticked on the voice became a haunting memory. "Who are you?" he asked in almost the same murderous voice.

"The infamous Ethan Hunt doesn't even know what is starring him in the face. You've got to look at things in a different way, Hunt."

_He tried to hide from the darkness that slowly spread over him like a cool blanket. He knew that the darkness wasn't something to be embraced but he couldn't hide. It slowly spread around him into every corner he tried to hide behind. He knows its waiting patiently for him to make a mistake. A mistake it would take advantage of to become him. _

The next thing he heard was his friends pained whines. At first he thought it was still the taunting voice leaving him with a final hissed plague but then he recognised a voice in from clenched words, "Cli..ive." The voice was clear, so the phone must have been right next to the technician's lips, and clearly recognisable as Benji's, raspy, pain filled, and gasping for breath.

"Benji? What's ha;" before he could finish his question the phone call was ended.

_His eyes fell against his will. He tried, he failed, the fight to keep them open but the relaxing position they landed in was too tempting. The empty glare they left him lying in was blissful to his taxed body. When he managed to lift his heavy lids his vision was clouded with a thick layer of moister that no amount of blinking would clear. _

As he stared at the blank screen he recalled what had happened not even an hour ago. He looked at the top right of the phone, at the small images that glowed there, 'One new voice mail' shown in his eyes. He played the message and listened closely to the words.

"Ethan its Benji. I know it's late and I know you told us to get some rest, but look… I've found something-on the hard drive-something big- something really big. I don't know who can be trusted but… I trust you and… and… you need to see this. If this is what I think it is- some one's coming I've gotta go."

_A fait sound in the distance was the only other occupant in the room. It sounded like a mix between a clogged drain desperate to swallow water and a whimpering dog afraid of its owner. For a while he was concerned as to the nature of the sound, but then he realised that it was his own voice making the pained sound. He suddenly felt as if he had been drinking pebbles as he bleed on the unforgiving ground. _

After arriving at HQ he readied his gun for confrontation and entered the building. IMF headquarters was as bustle of energy during the night as it was in the day. People walked from one room to the other like blind zombies. If it was this easy for him to enter the room he wondered how easy it would have been for an intruder.

"High security building my ass," he muttered to himself before pushing open the door to one of the 'privet labs'. Stepping foot in the room he automatically stilled upon seeing the scene.

_It should have disturbed him. That he couldn't bring forth the memories that contained what had happened to him. Why his body ached? Why his mind felt heavy? Why all he felt, beside the pain, was a cold damp feeling? But all he felt was a desperate need to return to the oblivion he had escaped. _

The doctors told them that it would have been painless but he knew otherwise. He had been shot in the back, both figuratively and literally, and he knew the excoriating pain it erupted. The spreading cold that began at the entry site and like ant crawled over your body. The knowledge that highlights your mind that this could very well be the last feeling you ever experience.

Rage filtered through his body at that thought. Benji was a technician. His job was situated in a lab behind a desk. Away from situations where he could he injured. Yet he had been killed by a bullet. Killed in a place where he was supposed to be safe.

The only thing that satisfied him was that Benji did not go down alone. The man that far too many people underestimated was able to shot and kill one of his attackers. Most people only ever looked at Benji's outward appearance and never at the man himself. If Benji were to ever ask him if he could become a field agent he would have given the Brit his full support.

_Hands puled at his body like vultures clawing at his skin and tearing him apart. Unforgiving in their torment of his body his eyes became moist as the pain sheered though him. His body lifted off the floor while his weak struggles were patted aside as if they were nuisance flies._

Rogue.

They had heard whispers about a rogue operative who was tidying loose ends before he or she retired with the enormous fortune his misdeeds had provided. They had no clue as to their identity or if it wasn't just a myth, what they did know was that names on a list were slowly being crossed out.

And Benji's name had been written on that list in rushed hand writing. All because he had stumbled across something he was not supposed to see. That was the misfortune of this particular line of employment. You ran the risk of finding out things about yourself and others that you wished you had never seen. You would start with the optimistic view of your surroundings only for that view to be tainted by anger, lies and on unfortunately death.

The technician was investigating the hard drive of a murdered Agent when he found the information that put him on the list. The owner was mounting their own investigation against the rogue and was close when he was killed. Had Benji not stayed late he wouldn't have been able to alert the rogue to his discovery. If he had found the information during the day, Benji would have had more protection that he did.

_It wasn't safe. Nowhere was safe nor will it ever be safe again. Even the dark oblivion wasn't going to be safe again. He wanted nothing more than to be surrounded by security even if it was only the confines of the four solid walls in his home. The lies he couldn't believe raced through his mind like blind horse trampling over unsteady ground. _

There were two things that made him furious about the situation. The first thing that angered him was that one of their own had been attacked inside their headquarters. People had been attacked before but hardly ever did it happen inside their building. It narrowed down the pool of suspects but it meant that it had to be one of their own who had gravely wounded Benji.

The other thing was that aggravated him was that Benji's body had been taken. On route to the hospital the EMT's had been ambushed. They had been unharmed but Benji's body had been taken. They had not been able to find the body, Benji's body, and had given up much hope that they would ever find him.

_They dealt in deceit. In a way lies were more addicting than any illegal substance. The child within you told you it was wrong, that you shouldn't be doing it, but you can't help it and after a while it becomes easier than breathing. Theses lies, the ones he stumbled across, where corpses filled with maggots. Unsympathetic dread engulfed his senses. The creature in the darkness had a voice, had a name, and had a face. A voice that haunted his hearing. A name he dared not to whisper. And a face he could picture with so much clarity his eyes burned from the vision. _

The warning Benji was trying to give him happened the following month. An attempted assignation was made on the life of a British representative. They stopped the killing in time and arrested the would-be murderer. The boy, a nineteen year old high school dropout, was recruited by their rogue when he was living on the street. The deeper they investigated the more lethal and dangerous the criminals became. Ethan and his team found bodies that were binned against the names of quite important members of the IMF and other members of the alphabetical agencies.

Like all criminals their rogue slipped up when he thought he was un-touchable. It took Ethan time to place a name against the sinister voice but he did. Their rogue had a name and a record. Clive Jones became not only a rogue agent but also a rogue cleaner. He covered the dirty secrets that officials didn't want to be found. He was found in a little city outside of Mexico laughing as he was dragged into the back of a van never to be seen or heard of again. Before he had allowed the man to be taken away, Ethan interrogated him for answers. The only reply he was given from his questions was a manic laugh.

_It shouldn't have taken this long to uncover the truth. It shouldn't have taken him this long to have uncovered the truth. It wasn't hidden it was only camouflaged. Any person could have stumbled over it and not realised the web they had been entrapped in. He was unfortunate to be the first to stumble into that web._

Following Clive's subdued incarceration IMF once again cleaned house. Resignations were handed in while other agents were disavowed. Some were found dead after apparent suicides. He handed his report along with his own resignation. He had never believed that IMF was innocently dressed in white with no sign of decay but he never once thought how deep it went.

He returned to training. The bright eager faces of his students reminded him of the hope he had lost. He engraved on their minds the core meaning of their duty as an IMF agent before he passed them for field service. If he saw even a flicker of doubt of their dedication he would not.

_A jolt altered him to his surroundings that were suffocating him into action. He looked around and knew by the movements where he was. A sharp turn blistered pain though his system. He moved, almost against his will, out of the depths he had hid inside of. With one last turn he began falling tumbling into harsh atmospheres he hoped would not be his grave. _

In a strange twist of events what had begun with a phone call swiftly ended with one. The hour had just turned twelve on July 24 2011 when he received the call. Pausing a one on one training session he answered the call, "Hunt?" he recognised the voice instantly as a former colleague of Julia's who now worked for a local hospital in ICU.

He listened for a while before informing the voice that he would be, "There within the hour," and fleeing the room without sparring an explaining for his confused partner.

_Lights submerged him as voices infiltrated his hearing and overcame the misplaced burning. He felt as though he was floating as teeth gnashed his skin. His numb fingers batted them away but they seek his body out again relentlessly._

Guilt; Guilt and anger were the two feeling that pushed him to break speed limits, rules, and even promises to get him to this end. He had promised to stop looking, he promised not to let his search become an obsession but he had broken that promise before he had even made it. He had lost count of the amount of rules he had discarded for selfish gain. All because he failed to answer a phone call leaving him with a deep pit of guilt.

"John Doe, 2610, was admitted in the early hours of the July 26th 2010. His file says he was found at the side of the road hidden amongst trash. He barely made it to the hospital. Fell into cardiac arrest several times before we managed to get him stable him enough for emergency surgery. Multiple gunshot wounds we're amazed he even survived. One bullet still lodge in his spine, I'm afraid he's unlikely to ever walk again. He'll more than likely be blind in one eye due to an infection we found too late to treat." The nurse paused his catalogue of injuries to spare a glance at Ethan. "I know he doesn't look like much but he's breathing on his own. When he's strong enough to regain full consciousness he should be able to lead a relatively normal life once he regains consciousness."

_When he was able to concentrate on raising the lids, they burned like skin upon the surface of the sun. His vision would never clear instead it was like he was looking though a dammed camera lenses. _

"If," Ethan kept reminding himself each time he looked at the body that lay across the bed. The previously bright eyes were closed and sunken into a complexion that died before the mind had. His body had lost both muscle and fat and was now only a shadow of the previous form. The profligate fingers were limb beside the still form. "If he wakes up?"

For the first time since he entered the room he looked at Benji and allowed his eyes to stay lingering on his friends face. "Benji, where did you go?"

_His eyes began to burn._

**-The End-**

**Okay so the ending is little rushed and could have been better but I was starting to lose my train of thought. I may come back at another point of time make a few changes but for something I've been working on for almost four months, I like it. **

**Please review, they help. **


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